2022 Annual Meeting of Members: Featuring Adam Paul Susaneck

Using historic aerial photography, Segregation By Design documents the destruction of communities of color due to red-lining, “urban renewal,” and freeway construction. Through a series of stark aerial before-and-after comparisons, figure-ground diagrams, and demographic data, Segregation By Design will reveal the extent to which the American city was methodically hollowed out based on race.

Boston by no means escaped the racist practices of redlining and deed restrictions. In fact, a deed restriction in nearby Brookline was written as early as 1855 by Amos A. Lawrence to Ivory Bean that forbade the future sale of the property to “…any negro or negroes nor any native or native of Ireland.”

Using urban renewal and freeway construction, the gov’t wiped out entire neighborhoods on a scale previously only seen in either natural disasters or war. The historic West End—one of those neighborhoods where the hope of America’s “melting pot” perhaps came the closest to fruition as it ever would—was entirely razed; its dense, winding streets replaced with parking lots for suburban commuters. This melting pot was called “blighted” by politicians, while residents such as Leonard Nimoy, spoke fondly of their time in the old West End.

Other Boston neighborhoods were demolished in name of urban renewal including Scollay Square, the New York Streets, and Nubian Square. Redlining and blockbusting spread through Dorchester, Mattapan, and Roxbury.